question_answer

Give the reasons for Mendel's success.

Answer:

Mendel succeeded in formulating the principles of heredity due to following reasons:

(i) The choice of garden pea (Pisum sativum) as experiment material for the hybridisation (controlled breeding) proved to be good aid for his success, as it can be easily cross-pollinated.

(ii) Mendel selected true-breeding (pure) pea plants for his experiments.

(iii) He confined his study with two conditions of a single character at a time. When behaviour of one character was established than he took two characters together and so on. This simplified the observation to be made.

(iv) Mendel also kept accurate records of several generations, so that he could trace the ancestry of a plant back from the beginning of the studies.

(v) The application of statistical methods and use of law of probability for analysing the results of experiments was another key of Mendel's success.

(vi) Mendel was fortunate enough that the characters which he chosen for the crossing experiments in garden pea did not show incomplete dominance, linkage to the genes of other characters and genes interaction.